After careful consideration of Republic of Ireland manager candidates, it seems likely that Lee Kearsley will be appointed for the friendly games against Belgium and Switzerland in March.
Roy Keane has been buzzing about the appeal of the job in recent days, but with each passing season he seems to be relishing the world of punditry, with football management becoming more and more distant for him.
Neil Lennon would also be a fair assessment given his coaching experience and having worked in the pressure cooker at Celtic Football Club on several occasions.
Having covered Ireland’s top teams since 2001 and seen the rise and fall of seven different managerial teams in that time, it’s hard to get excited about the FAI’s next appointments. Because whoever takes over will have a mountain to climb to get closer to qualifying for the next major. Another tournament.
Over the past 20 years we have witnessed the unending decline of Irish football.
When I joined the Republic of Ireland press corps in 2001, Mick McCarthy was on the crest of a wave.
He was still learning on the job and had great qualities in his team to qualify for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
At the time, I was completely new to working in Ireland, and I was regularly told by veteran reporters how much of a connection they were to the Irish, on a peaceful day when they shared a pint with the likes of Big Jack and Ray Houghton. I was entertained by how much I enjoyed the one-on-one interaction. players.
That meaningful access has sadly been replaced by top-table press conferences with generally dull quotes and little insight.
Despite this, little did we know that we were still living in peaceful days.
The 2002 World Cup final was a very open tournament, but who knows how far the Irish team could have progressed had Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy not been eliminated.
Quarter finals? Maybe the semi-finals? Final game?
Such lofty prospects are unthinkable this summer, when Irish fans are set to enjoy a third successive major tournament from the comfort of their armchairs or bar stools.
Even when Brian Kerr took over from McCarthy, the Irishman still had a good chance of reaching another major final as a puncher.
Robbie Keane didn’t play his best football under his former manager when he was underage, but he was still in his prime and a big goal-scoring threat for European defenders.
At one point, Kerr likened Damian Duff’s wing magic to the great George Best.
It may seem a little silly now, but Duff was truly outstanding for Ireland in the early 1990s, carrying his form in the Far East into an ill-fated Euro 2004 qualifier.
But as that generation began to age and retire, talent began to dwindle on the conveyor belt of Ireland’s youth organization.
And that was the problem with Irish football, emblematic of John Delaney’s reign.
One appearance in a major tournament can always make up for the many sins and papers covering up the cracks in the rotten underage scene here and there.
Still, the FAI hit the jackpot and qualified for the European Championship two years in a row, in 2012 and 2016.
Injuries to several key players at Euro 2012 showed just how fragile Ireland’s challenge really is. It crashed and burned in faraway countries like Croatia, Spain, and Italy.
Martin O’Neill squeezed one last major tournament out of Ireland’s thin resources and gave us a night and a half in Lille and a great afternoon in Lyon.
For 23 years, I’ve been on numerous laptops debating the strengths and weaknesses of every Irish manager.
What I’ve also noticed over the last few years is that managerial tenures are often treated more kindly and more reliably in balance over time.
Back in 2005, the self-proclaimed bluebloods of Irish football (usually ex-pros who looked up to the likes of Brian Kerr) believed that Ireland was much more than a blue-collar manager from Drimnagh. He insisted that he could get good grades.
Delaney extradited Steve Stanton. A roll of the dice that failed miserably.
Ask most observers now and they’ll tell you Kerr deserves another crack at a major tournament.
O’Neill featured in the 2018 World Cup play-offs with a number of journeymen before being sacked by Christian Eriksen.
When Mick McCarthy returned to the post for a second stint, he was in disbelief at the lack of playing resources and even recalled veteran Glenn Whelan to play midfield.
The gist of this simmering history is that with each juncture, or for lack of a better expression, each managerial change, Ireland have looked more and more like a failed flash on the international stage.
When Stephen Kenny arrived, the Irish national team was at its lowest point in history. A global pandemic hit, and his subsequent absences made his job to win games even tougher.
Towards the end of his term, Dublin was ransacked by many. Every lofty declaration was thrown back in his face.
It didn’t really matter which formation he chose. The biggest problem was that he had to select players, many of whom were unable to play matches for his club.
There were several injuries and the team was exhausted. Kenny wanted to change Irish football, but he was also tasked with building a team from the ground up.
But a successful revolution requires tools. And Kenny simply wasn’t having it.
All he could really do was try to build the team for the future.
Having the idea of qualifying for a major tournament was never realistic, but like the beliefs of Bible thumpers, many former pros argued that it should always be possible.
There was clearly a gap in our understanding of the state of affairs in Irish football.
Nevertheless, Kenny has left Lee Kearsley with some grounding – if the 40-capped former Ireland international midfielder gets the job.
He has built the best team possible, with a number of current players currently between 15th and 25th capped.
The $6 million question is whether the next manager can make this Irish team greater than the sum of its parts.
What is absolutely clear is that the appointment of one senior manager will not magically remove a generational disregard for the domestic game and young organizations.
But history will be kind to Stephen Kenny, and indeed to the next Irish director couple facing an attempt to turn water into wine.
